THE WEATHER
See page 2 for the week´s forecast
Edition 314
www.thecourier.es
Friday 24th March 2017
LET THE SEASON BEGIN! A
licante-Elche airport bosses say that they are looking forward to a bumper record-breaking summer, with a 14 percent rise on the number of flight seats being offered for the high season which starts this Sunday and runs until October 31st. Airport manager, Santiago Martínez-Cava, says that they forecasting a total of 13 million passengers at Alicante-Elche this year, a seven-hundred thousand rise on what was a record figure for 2016. The projections come in the 50th anniversary year for the facility at El Altet, with the rises strongly down to UK holidaymakers who do not appear to be concerned about lower exchange rates in the wake of Brexit. Britishbased tour companies are
offering five million seats during the high season, a 17 percent rise on last summer, as they continue to switch resources from North African and Turkish resorts due to terrorism fears. Four point nine million seats have been reserved purely for the UK market, but there have been massive percentage rises for other countries. Over half a million seats are destined for Swedish travellers, a hike of 36 percent, and that’s followed by a 24 percent boost for connections to Holland, meaning that 716 thousand seats are earmarked for that country. 66 thousand flights are scheduled over the next seven months, with a total of 203 routes which include new links to Lisbon,
BY ALEX TRELINSKI Toulouse, and Marseilles, and a rise of 15 links altogether compared to last year’s peak period. There’s a fourteen percent rise on the number of seats offered to European locations, but there is also a 10 percent hike in domestic seating, plus eight percent to and
from North Africa. The biggest destination in terms of seats is Gatwick Airport, with over 801 thousand seats on offer, but there have been big increases logged for the high season on connections with popular places, Barcelona and Birmingham.
VICTIMS REMEMBERED
L
eading Spanish politicians gathered on parliament's steps in Madrid yesterday for a minute's silence for the victims of Wednesday’s terror attack in London, among them a British national with Spanish ancestry. At the same hour, officials and residents (pictured) of the north-western Galicia region town of Betanzos stood in silence in memory of 43-year-old Aysha Frade, one of the attack victims and whose mother was born in the town. In a posting on its Facebook page, Betanzos
council said that "Aysha was the daughter of a Betanzos resident and was linked by family and emotionally to our
town." Betanzos declared three days of official mourning for the victims, with flags on offi-
cial buildings, including the town hall and parliament being flown at half-mast as a mark of respect.